ABSTRACT
Number sense warm-ups, or number talks, in the daily math lesson routine is a powerful way to build procedural flexibility and a strong number sense (Kilpatrick, Swafford, & Findell, 2001; Parrish, 2010). It is also a wonderful opportunity to introduce students to key mathematical language and demonstrate the precise use of mathematical symbolism. We’ll examine this approach for an addition and subtraction problem example. In Chapter 8 we examined an experience then name the approach to learning mathematical language. As we provide the mathematical language for student thinking, notice that students first mentally solve the problem. They have a common experience. We then use conceptual mathematics language and precise symbolic equations to represent their thinking and name it.
